PAKISTAN: The Shadow of Kashmir

One of the bitter disputes that came out of
the violent partition of India and Pakistan was what to do about the
Indus River basin, which sprawled across the borders with no regard to
politics. The Indus, whose flow is twice that of the Nile, is
Pakistan's lifeline; without it, all Western Pakistan would be a
desert.
Though only 8% of the basin's area stayed in India, it includes the
headwaters of three of the six principal tributary streams. For one
brief period in 1948, India, eager to divert the flow into her desert
territories, cut off Pakistan's water....